SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The Trump administration plans to rescind a nearly quarter-century-old rule that blocked logging on national forest lands. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Monday that the 2001 roadless rule from the last days of the Clinton administration impeded road construction and timber production that would have reduced the risk of major wildfires. The USDA says the rule affects 30% of national forest lands nationwide. Environmental groups criticize the proposed change, calling it an attack on the air we breathe, water we drink, and habitat for wildlife.

Reporting by Morgan Lee And Becky Bohrer, Associated Press.

Banner image: Hoh rainforest, U.S.. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay

In the forests of Vidarbha, where he spent most of his adult life, Maruti Chitampalli did not walk so much as listen. While others mapped territory, he absorbed language—of birds, of trees, of the people who lived among them. Over four decades as a forest officer in Maharashtra, he moved not as a bureaucrat but as a student, learning from former hunters, Adivasi elders, and the long silences of the jungle. To them he owed his real education. The theory he had picked up in the Coimbatore Forest College—on timber yield and tree girth—was soon rendered secondary.

He rose to become Deputy Chief Conservator of Forests, but it was his work outside of formal duties that left a deeper mark. He helped shape protected areas such as Karnala Bird Sanctuary, Nagzira Wildlife Sanctuary, and the Melghat Tiger Reserve, and designed orphanages for displaced wildlife. Yet his most lasting achievement may have been as a communicator of the wild to those who would never step into it.

He wrote 25 books in Marathi—some factual, some impressionistic, some encyclopedic. His first, Pakshi Jaay Digantara (“The Birds Migrate Beyond the Horizon”), published in 1981, was an immediate success. His later works—Pakshi Kosh (on birds), Prani Kosh (on animals), and the unfinished Matsya Kosh (on fish)—made scientific knowledge accessible in local idioms, often borrowing from tribal dialects. He introduced new terms to the Marathi language, blending folk knowledge and field observation with philological care.

Chitampalli’s commitment to language was methodical. When he realized he could not understand the Sanskrit and scientific texts he needed, he enrolled in language classes—first Sanskrit, then others. He kept to a monkish discipline: waking at 3am to write, even in old age, and filling diaries with observations drawn from campfires and canopy walks.

His admirers called him Aranya Rishi, the forest sage. But unlike the mythical seers of Hindu lore, Chitampalli made no claims to spiritual insight. His knowledge was built from patience, repetition, and a deep respect for what he called the “minute details” of the natural world. He believed diary-keeping to be a moral obligation for foresters—an ethic largely absent, he lamented, among newer generations.

Though he received the Padma Shri just months before his death, recognition came late. He presided over the Marathi Sahitya Sammelan in 2006, rare for someone from the forestry profession. And while his books are required reading in Maharashtra’s universities and schools, few were ever translated. That bothered him. The forest, he felt, belonged to all—and so should the stories it held.

He returned to Solapur, his birthplace, shortly before his death. From there, too frail to roam, he continued writing from memory and notes. “My readers and various organizations,” he said, “are my successors.” He was not being humble. He meant that the work of listening—and of passing on what is heard—is never truly finished.

Mongabay-India Obituary

Header: Chitampalli. Screenshot from Wildlife of Vidarbha

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries.

More than a century after British colonial forces marched into the Siang Valley in what is now the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, their expedition has taken on a new significance. What began in 1912 as a punitive military campaign has yielded an unlikely legacy: a 1,000-page natural history record that, today, is helping scientists rediscover one of India’s least-studied ecosystems, reports Simrin Sirur.

That legacy is now being reclaimed. A recent biodiversity survey, led by Indian researchers and conservationists retracing the 1912 route, has documented more than 1,500 species, from elusive birds to shimmering electric-blue ants and ancient velvet worms. The findings underscore the valley’s ecological wealth and its role as a migratory corridor, including for species like the common crane (Grus grus), never before seen there in such numbers.

Yet this landscape, stretching from lowland tropics to alpine pastures, is under growing threat. Deforestation, expanding agriculture, and the proposed 11.2-gigawatt Upper Siang Dam loom large.

“As long as the habitat is there, species can bounce back,” said Rajkamal Goswami of the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE). “But if it’s converted or submerged, we lose everything.”

In response, community-led conservation efforts are taking root. In Gobuk, a remote village in Upper Siang, residents have built a grassroots initiative around the rediscovery of the “dark freak” butterfly, Calinaga aborica. Where once hunting was tradition, pride in biodiversity is growing. Homestays now host visitors and school libraries stock species guides. Other villages near Mouling National Park are also beginning to establish community-conserved areas.

At a time when global insect and bird populations are in decline, the Siang expedition is not only a scientific rediscovery — it is a call to safeguard what remains. In a region long overlooked, communities and researchers are charting a different path, one that values knowledge, memory and stewardship over conquest.

This is a summary of Simrin Sirur’s “Retracing the route of a century-old biodiversity expedition.”

Banner image: Expedition members collect samples of moths and other insects. Image by Sandesh Kadur/Felis Images (CC BY-ND 4.0).

Climate change, overfishing and habitat loss have caused a sharp decline in fish stocks around Pemba Island, off the coast of Tanzania. To find a new income from the sea, women from Pemba are turning to sustainable seaweed farming, Mongabay’s video team reported in May.

Seaweed farming was introduced to the island in 1989. It has a low environmental impact at small scale, especially since it’s grown in shallow ocean water and doesn’t require fertilizers, freshwater or arable land. Today, the practice helps seaweed farmers, who are mostly women, support their families.

“I have been a seaweed farmer since 1995. I value this activity as it helps me provide food for my family, pay for my children’s education, and earn a living,” seaweed farmer Shadya told Mongabay.

She added that the seaweed farm has created something of a microhabitat attracting a variety of fish, squid, octopus and other marine animals. Studies also show that seaweed farms can mitigate the local effects of ocean acidification.

Seaweed has become one of Tanzania’s main exports, Mongabay reported. In light of this, the government has been supporting programs for sustainable seaweed farming.

“Since this project, they’ve adopted modern farming techniques,” seaweed agriculture expert Aisha Hamisi Sultani told Mongabay, referring to what is called a double loop system.

More than 25,000 seaweed farmers, mostly women, have benefited from a government program in partnership with The Nature Conservancy. With improved cultivation techniques, the farmers are able to earn more money.

“It helped us greatly as our harvests have increased,” Shadya said.

Despite their progress, the seaweed farmers of Tanzania still face a number of challenges, including the changing climate.

“When the water gets too hot, the seaweed is damaged. During strong winds, it gets scattered,” Shadya said.

Sultani said the farmers also have to deal with ocean pollution from improper waste disposal.

Most of the seaweed sold for export is used to make carrageenan or agar, which are thickening and stabilizing agents for food, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

“Over 90% of seaweed is exported as raw material. Farmers, especially women, do not benefit because they’re given a lower price,” Ayubu Singoye, an aquaculture specialist with TNC, told Mongabay.

For a kilogram of seaweed they are paid just 700 shillings or 25 U.S. cents, or about 12 cents a pound.

Sultani said the next step is to process the seaweed locally, creating value-added seaweed products so the farmers can earn more from their labor.

Singoye said the government has already built a factory in Pemba to process seaweed into carrageenan.

“Hopefully when the factory starts [early next year], we’ll be able to process here and have a better price,” Singoye said.

Watch the full video here.

Banner image of a woman farming seaweed at Pemba Island, Tanzania. Image © Franz Thiel.

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Authorities in southern Mexico were still assessing damage and watching rising rivers as rain from the remnants of Hurricane Erick doused the region. Authorities reported landslides, blocked highways, downed power lines and some flooding. At least one death was confirmed late Thursday, a 1-year-old boy who drowned in a swollen river. Acapulco residents and remaining tourists emerged to walk outside or visit the few open businesses as the remnants of Hurricane Erick scraped by just inland of the resort.

Reporting by Fabiola Sánchez and Luis Alberto Cruz, Associated Press

Banner image: Residents remove debris after the passing of Hurricane Erick, near Charco Redondo, Oaxaca state, Mexico, Thursday, June 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Luis Alberto Cruz)

Scavengers aren’t the most charismatic of animals, but they perform a vital task: by eating carrion, they remove dead animals from our environments. Yet large-bodied scavengers are declining worldwide, increasing the risk of the spread of diseases, according to a recent study.

Researchers found that 1,376 animal species have been recorded in the scientific literature to either partially or fully eat carrion as part of their diets. They range from vultures and hyenas, to tiger sharks and cane toads, and even some salamanders, orcas and shrews.

Of these documented scavengers, only 17 species, or 1%, are obligate scavengers, those whose diet is fully comprised of carrion. A further 50% are facultative scavengers, meaning carrion is just part of their diet. For the remaining 49% of scavenging species, their dependence on carrion isn’t well-described, although they’re likely to be facultative, the authors write.

The study found that about 36% of the known scavenging species are either threatened with extinction, or are declining in number, according to the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority.

What’s most worrying, the authors say, is that apex scavengers — the most efficient, large-bodied or obligate scavengers that consume the most carrion in an ecosystem — are declining. These include large scavengers in the marine world like some sharks, albatrosses and petrels, and those on land, such as hyenas and vultures. In India, for example, several vulture species have suffered catastrophic population declines of 97-99.9% since the 1990s.

On the other hand, some smaller-sized scavenging animals, or mesoscavengers, are thriving. This isn’t necessarily a good thing, the authors write, because they don’t consume the same amounts of carrion that apex scavengers do, and some mesoscavengers like dogs and rodents are themselves carriers of diseases.

“Scavengers are in decline, but it’s not homogeneous,” study co-author Rodolfo Dirzo, from Stanford University, U.S., said in a statement. “It is particularly the large and specialized ones. At the same time, this allows space for the smaller scavengers, which are problematic because they are themselves sources of zoonotic diseases. They are also not capable of compensating as they cannot consume as much carrion.”

After the decline of vultures in India, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, for instance, dog numbers increasingly filled the void as scavengers. With dogs far more likely to come into contact with people, deadly zoonotic diseases like echinococcosis, leishmaniasis and rabies also increased. Similarly, an increase in rat and mouse populations has been associated with more leptospirosis outbreaks over the past decades in the Caribbean, East Africa, Oceania and Southeast Asia.

Pablo Plaza, a veterinarian at the National University of Comahue in Argentina, who wasn’t involved in the study, told Science News that scientists still need to collect experimental evidence to understand how big the health impact of scavenger decline might be. But he added he hopes that studies like this one will promote conservation of large scavengers.

Banner image of vultures feeding on carrion, by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.